


Swings

by Supernova95



Series: Home Alone [10]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Child Abandonment, Child Neglect, Gen, There will be a happy ending, at some point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 02:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supernova95/pseuds/Supernova95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Timmy was still in there: somewhere. He may have set up mental blockades to protect himself from his parents, but Dick was damned if he wasn't going to lay siege to them, because they were no longer protecting a treasure: but imprisoning it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swings

Tim was sitting on the swing… not swinging, just sitting; legs perfectly still, hands in his lap looking out over the Atlantic. He had done this every day since coming to the manor. It wasn’t right. Swings were made to be swung on, not just sat on; they had chairs for that. Given, Tim looked exceedingly cute sitting on the swing; Dick just thought he would look cuter swinging on it, a bright smile on his face, laughing as the wind, caused by the pendulum motion (he, unlike Jason, paid attention in school), rippled through his hair, feeling the mildly nauseating and disorientating rush that every kid enjoys at his age whenever they go on swings at the park. He definitely shouldn’t just be sitting there too scared to move.

 

"-rth to Dick Grayson… What’s up bro?" his eyes snapped to Jason, whom he was sure was just getting out of after school detention the last time he checked his watch. His face was lined with concern for his older brother.

"Nothin Little Wing…" Jason’s brow creased further,

"I know that tone Dick; what’s up?" in that moment his throat clenched painfully preventing him from talking; he couldn’t muster the words to explain why he had just been staring out of the manor window at Tim just sitting on a swing for the better part of an hour.

“I just hate seeing him like this.” He finally found his voice, although it came out much like a hoarse whisper and nodded out to Tim with Jason following his gaze, his face falling when his eyes met the target. It made Dick’s stomach churn in agony that the boy sitting on the swing wasn’t the Tim he thought he knew… or was it that Tim wasn’t the boy he thought he was.

“I know” Did he?… did Jason really know what he meant? How could he  **really** know what Tim was like? Dick had known Tim since he came to the manor… Tim was three. He was the happiest three year old he had ever met; bright, resourceful, laugh like an angel. As much as Alfred says that Dick coming to live at the manor brought a light to it, and Bruce’s life, the times they babysat Tim made the manor practically glow. A glow that dimmed the older he got. The laughs and smiles that Jason was privy to, when he arrived at the manor, were merely spectres of Tim’s past. Ghosts of a boy that once lived. A boy that was now shut behind mental barricades formed by his parent’s angry words, their vicious shouting of derogatory terms that Tim was too young to understand but remembered them anyway. Jason never met the real Tim; not like he did.

“I want my Timmy back.” His voice was so low that it was barely audible, more for his own sake than Jason’s. “I want the Timmy that laughs and cuddles and squeals and runs around really fast when we chase him, and grins giggling when we catch him and who’s really bubbly all the time and lets us play pretend with him costumes and all. I want that Timmy back. Not this one. This is not Timmy…” how could someone’s parents do that to their kid? He couldn’t understand… both his families treated him with love and kindness; his first may not have had much, but they never shouted at him unless he had done something amazingly stupid. It was the same when he got to the manor, it wasn’t the same touchy feely love he had grown up with, but it was still love. Bruce had a weird way of showing it at first but he could always tell it was there, especially when they babysat Tim. Watching the love and happiness come into Bruce’s eyes when the boy was in the manor was like a gift from heaven… it was so gratifying to Alfred and himself that they would miss it when Tim was gone and back with his family (well the people who were biologically related to him, they weren’t his family not after everything they had done to Tim, they didn’t have the right). Since Jason, Bruce’s eye lit up more and more around everyone. Who knew adopting a lost orphaned street kid could make the Batman melt into hugs and smiles? Bruce and his parents went about their parenting duties differently; but at least he knew they loved him. They definitely didn’t leave him alone for months at a time… 

He really didn’t understand how anyone could do that to their own child? Their own flesh and blood. They had made their son a frightened little shell of the boy and not even noticed. Too busy off gallivanting around the world on one of their ‘excavations’ to notice the child they left at home. Too busy dealing in illegal artefacts, and making money, and off on business trips with Drake Industries to care about the cute little kid shivering alone in his bed at night because he had had a nightmare and there was no one there to comfort him.

It made his stomach churn, his skin crawl and anger boil up inside him.

He was glad that the Drakes were now behind bars pending a trial, safely away from Timmy, because if he saw them even look at the perfect little child they neglected again he might just snap and do something he would regret. Simply because he doesn’t want Tim to lose another person in his life, not because he minds hurting Tim’s parents.

His anger must have shown a little because his fists were clenched and Jason’s hands were suddenly grasping his shoulders,

“I know Dick, but what can we do?” frowns came upon both their faces for a while before they came up with the same plan simultaneously. Broad grins graced their faces as they looked at each other and ran outside.

“Timbo”

“Little Brother” it took them fifteen seconds to reach the swing, another ten for Jason to scale the trunk and hang down, by his knees, from one of the thicker branches, and for Dick to unceremoniously plonk himself on the swing seat next to Tim. Tim didn’t even react.

“Hey Timmy, what’ya dooooing” It was official he had been watching too many after school cartoons.

After a few seconds Tim’s face turned.

Crying.

That’s what he had been doing, and a lot of it. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks red with white wet streaks running down them. Dick merely scooped him into an embrace.

“They’re not coming back, are they?”

He couldn’t lie… not to Tim who had hear lies all his life and was now defending the people who gave them to him.

“No Tim, not anytime soon”  _hopefully never_

“I don’t understand” Dick shared a look with Jason because how do you tell someone that the people who meant the most to him in the world, the people who he looked up to, the people who he just wanted to make proud; how do you tell someone that to those people you mean nothing at all.

Because if you did then they wouldn’t have left you at home alone, fending for yourself.

They would have loved you and cared for you and taken you around the world with them, and shared the world with you. That being able to take care of yourself enough that you can barely survive is not an honour, it’s not an award, it’s neglect. It’s not normal, it’s not loving, it’s not what parents do.

“Neither do I Tim, neither do I” he pushed off gently from the floor and started to swing. Tim froze as though the world was going to end. “What’s wrong Timmy?”

“We shouldn’t be doing this; I shouldn’t be doing this… I can’t… it’s… it’s not right.  Mr Wayne will be angry because I shouldn’t be doing this…”

“Hey Timbo, it’s a swing… it swings. That’s what it’s supposed to do” Jason, brash as always

“No… mommy says that it’s not right and proper for someone to swing on a swing, it’s childish and unbecoming.” That made his blood boil more if it was even possible, Jason’s too he could tell. And Tim could too, because he immediately froze, expecting to be shouted at.

“Tim, we’re not angry and we’re not going to shout at you. Neither is Bru- Mr Wayne- for enjoying swinging on a swing. I don’t care what your parents say… swinging on this swing is definitely becoming of you. It is a very becoming swing… your parents have just obviously never met Mr Swingy have they?” a small smile broke onto Tim’s face and-

They could work with that. Timmy was still in there: somewhere. He may have set up mental blockades to protect himself from his parents, but Dick was damned if he wasn't going to lay siege to them, because they were no longer protecting a treasure: but imprisoning it.   


End file.
